Tom Johnson, July 11, 2010
Jesus is speaking publicly. You can
hear a pin drop. They’re hanging on every word. But not everyone is happy that
he speaks with such authority. An expert in the Law of Moses stands up and
interrupts Jesus midsentence. “Excuse me, teacher! You speak very
eloquently about eternal life. What does one have to do in order to earn
eternal life?” “You’re the expert,” Jesus quips back, “You tell me. What’s the
Bible say?” “You shall love the Lord your God
with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with
all your mind,” he replies. And then he adds, “Love your neighbor as yourself.
Love God. Love your neighbor.” “Exactly,” Jesus says, “Well said.”
And then with a smile and a hint of sarcasm, Jesus said “Do what God has
commanded and you will live.”
But the expert in the Law replies
back to Jesus with his own smile and hint of sarcasm, “And just who is my
neighbor? Certainly, my neighbors are good, law abiding citizens. “Certainly, I am under no obligation
to love people who have become my neighbors by force—like the Romans. They
don’t belong here. This is our land. These are our people. I am not expected to
love those people who cross our borders illegally and just so happen to move in
next to me—like the Samaritans. I am only compelled to love my
neighbor who is my lawful neighbor—my neighbor who has not violated any laws or
what is sacred to be my neighbor.” “Let me tell you a story,” Jesus says.
In order to try to get the full
impact of this story, hear the story with fresh ears, and not miss how radical
Jesus story is, I have tried to find a way to retell this story that I hope has
a similar impact:
“There was one of these law abiding citizens
you speak of who was on the green line late one night on his way from work. A
group of thugs mugged him and beat him until he was unconscious. It just so happens that the next
person to get off a train at that stop was a pastor—a Lutheran pastor—a
synodically trained, LCMS pastor. But when he saw the body lying there, he
walked on the other side of the platform. And it just so happens that the next
person to get off a train at that stop was teacher—a Lutheran teacher—a
synodically trained, LCMS teacher. But when she saw the body lying there, she
walked on the other side of the platform. But an Iranian, a chemistry
professor from the University of Tehran, the capital of Iran saw the body lying
there. She was in Chicago for a few days for a convention. When she saw him lying helpless and
badly beaten up, she was deeply moved. She drew closer to him and could see
that he was having trouble breathing. So, she used the CPR training she had to
position his head better so that he could breathe. She applied pressure on an open
wound with one hand and used her cell phone with her other hand to dial 9-1-1.
It took the paramedics 20 minutes to find and arrive for help. But she stayed
there to ensure that he could breathe and that he did not lose any more blood. When the paramedics loaded the man
into the ambulance, she rode along with them to the hospital. And there she
stayed at the hospital to ensure that he got the care he needed. When the
Iranian chemistry professor’s convention ended, she checked on him one more
time before she had to return to Iran. From her home in Iran, she called
often to check on his progress. He was able to walk again. But his speech was
still slurred. Out of her own pocket, she paid a speech pathologist to help him
to speak clearly again.”
So, Jesus finished his story. He
makes eye contact with the expert in the Law of Moses, and asks him, “Which of
the three people in this story is the neighbor? Which one demonstrated their
neighborliness to the man who was mugged and left for dead…the Lutheran pastor,
the Lutheran school teacher, or the Iranian?” Backed into a corner and with
hesitation in his voice, he replies, “The Iranian…the chemistry professor…the
one who showed compassion and helped the helpless man.”
Jesus said, “That is the true meaning
of the law—to love your neighbor—to love the one God has given you the
opportunity to love—to love the one who comes across your path—irrespective of
their gender, ethnicity, or religious beliefs.” It seems that Jesus wants us to be a
better human being. The question is not “Who is my neighbor?” but “How can I be
a neighbor to those around me in the world?” To love like the Samaritan—or
Iranian—is to love selflessly and indiscriminately. It is to love out of
genuine and authentic compassion. It is to love another human being because we
are all made in the image of God.”
And to the expert in the Law of
Moses’ first question, we don’t help other people to earn favor with God. We
don’t have compassion to purchase eternal life. We do so because of the love of
God in our lives—love that spills out into the lives of those around us—no
matter who they are. This is the love of Jesus, the love
of the eternal Son of God—coming from the far country of the Kingdom of God,
who, although his journey was short, helped us when nobody else could or would
and simply passed us by leaving us for dead. Instead, as the Good Samritan, Jesus
stoops down in his new humanity, picks us up, and binds up our wounds on the
cross. He anoints our heads with water, the Word, and the Holy Spirit. He pays the price and makes sure to raise us
up who are otherwise left for dead. He raises us by the same power that raised
him from the dead. And he gives us the means to live that life of love now and
for all eternity. That is the kind of love we have received. That is the kind
of love we are called to live out.
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